“Like A Leaf On The Wind…”

Obviously, I played X-Wing today.

This piece show a non-Adorable Zone, more “Rebels” driven piece of art with Hera in it. She pilots the “Ghost”, which is my favorite thing in X-wing right now. The ship in the background is the “Ghost,” which has dominated my play of the X-Wing Miniatures game lately…mainly because I waited for it for ages, and it was a bunch of money. I am BENT on getting my value out of that @#$% bastard of a spaceship. Also, we have the droid Chopper, which allows me to do irresponsible actions while “piloting” the Ghost, with a small drawback for the poor steering choices. I like that.

Playing X-wing at the game stores is always a Mixed Bag. For one thing…the time you show up is VITAL. Too early, and there are no games. Too late…and the place is packed, and it is hard to play, because you need a three foot by three foot square to do so. Also, they are ostensibly trying to run a business around you, which impedes play further. Add to that the fact that I feel that I should pay some kind of “dues” for using the space, and thus try and purchase at least a nominal amount of X-wing or Magic: the Gathering related stuff to offset my time…there’s a whole LOT going on.

Secondly…the people that you are playing with are people that like the same game that you do…but have little else in common with you. That can be tough ground to cover. Some people are interested in competitive tournament play (it exists), and others, like me, just want other people to play with, because that’s fun. I don’t mind having my @#$ kicked…in fact, I did well today, and my win to loss ratio was fifty fifty. That’s massively up from the last few times I’ve rolled out with the Ghost, so I’m ecstatic.

Still…some people are Deadly Serious. It’s interesting in its way, but not necessarily great to deal with.

Another fellow, who I didn’t catch the name of, played two matches, and he was clearly interested in just the “love of the game.” It was fun to watch his matches go on, because he was both good, interesting, and not overly concerned with winning. Instead, he was interested in the game mechanics, and socializing with a group that shared his interest. Pretty cool.

My friend, who I went with, revealed his new group build, which was ROUGH. More interesting that the ROUGHNESS was the paint job…he straight up had an Evil Punisher Clown Head on one of his space ships. It was a level of detail that none of the other custom paint people had, but no one really commented on it. I was a bit bewildered by that. Part of me thought that the detail and “used look” were a total departure from the “fresh out of the showroom” paint jobs that the others had….so they didn’t know how to discuss it. A more significant part thought that my buddy’s vision was different that “canon Star Wars” and as a result, couldn’t be consciously acknowledged. Still, he easily had the best looking ships in play.

In my first game, I did well with the new Ghost build…in the second, I got my head handed to me pretty quickly. Considering that the last two time I played I had a 100 percent loss rate, this is an Incredible Improvement, and I am Very Happy. Granted, I’m playing with a tough, not popular in tournament play build…but what does one expect? That’s how the Challengers of the @#$%ing Impossible would roll.